


A Moment's Notice

by sevedra



Series: Portraits of Recovery [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, POV Tony Stark, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-The Avengers: Infinity War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 02:31:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13448652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevedra/pseuds/sevedra
Summary: Tony noticed that Barnes wasn't wearing shoes. Again.





	A Moment's Notice

Tony noticed that Barnes wasn't wearing shoes. Again. His jeans were a little long and the hems were fraying from being walked on. His toes were showing. Tony stared for a minute. He couldn't remember when he'd last seen Barnes wearing shoes. He thought about it while waiting for his coffee to brew.

The Rogues had been back at the compound for a few months now. Well, some of them were back. Barton had retired, again, and gone home. Lang had gone back to California, presumably to his family. But, Barnes and the others had been here for a few months. And he'd definitely been wearing shoes when they arrived. He'd been wearing shoes when he'd come to the workshop a few weeks ago. But last week, and the week before, Tony had seen him several times in the common room and the kitchen, always barefoot.

There were a lot of reasonable explanations for not wearing shoes. Probably. Maybe he'd just woke up and hadn't put any on yet. Maybe he'd showered and not put shoes back on after. Maybe he'd been out and his shoes got dirty and he'd taken them off. Maybe he was a poor shoeless orphan. Tony didn't know. He thought he didn't care. But he was starting to wonder. Everyone else wore shoes. Tony wore shoes.

Tony didn't like Barnes. He didn't hate him, but he didn't like him. He had tried to kill him that one time. But there were extenuating circumstances! Barnes had just murdered his parents right in front of him. Sure, it was a video, but the hand that strangled his mother was dangling two feet to Tony's right. So, circumstances.  After, when Tony had time to let it settle, he knew Barnes wasn't to blame. Not really. The Winter Soldier had killed Tony's parents while operating under the control of HYDRA. Bucky Barnes was absent that day. Barnes was absent pretty much every day for approximately 70 years. So, Tony knew Barnes' hands had killed his parents and he accepted that, but he also knew Barnes hadn't really had anything to do with it. And he knows Barnes wouldn't have chosen to do it if he'd been able to choose. Tony wasn't holding a grudge against Barnes for The Winter Soldier's actions. All of Tony's grudge-holding was reserved for Rogers. _Sometimes my teammates don't tell me things_

A couple of days later, Barnes came to the workshop for arm maintenance. Tony didn't even bother looking at his face first, he just looked straight at his feet. And they were bare. His pant legs frayed and his toes long and his arch high, like a dancer's; oddly delicate for the feet of the world's most lethal assassin. His feet looked vulnerable.

"So. Okay. I don't know if you noticed, but you aren't wearing any shoes." Tony glanced up at Barnes' face and then back down at his naked toes. Who came barefoot to a workshop?

Barnes looked down at his own feet and deadpanned, "I noticed."

"What? Was that sass? Did you just smartass me? I didn't know you could do that!" This time when Tony looked up, he kept his eyes on Barnes. "Alright. Why are your feet bare? In the shop? This is a total disregard for lab safety! Never be shoeless, never wear loose clothing, and never drink anything Dum-E gives you. There are rules."

Barnes' lips quirked just a bit at the edges. Tony thought it was nearly a smile. Barnes ducked his head slightly and let his hair fall so he could look at Tony through it. Tony would have thought that was cute, even endearing if they had been buddies. If they were friends, Tony would have called him on the coyness and they would have laughed together. They weren't friends. But they weren't really enemies any longer.

"I wore combat boots every day that I can remember for the past 75 years. Since I left HYDRA, my feet like being bare. Free. I don't know." Barnes shrugged and glanced around the shop, marking where Dum-E was charging, and then back to Tony.

"You don't know. Did you wear shoes in Romania? There were what, two years between HYDRA and Rogers finding you? Before," Tony swirled his hand in the air with a flourish seeming to encompass everything, "you know."

"Yeah. No. I wore boots in Romania. Every day. Do you want a real answer? Or are you just filling the silence?" He looked at Dum-E again and then to the tabletop full of gadgets behind Tony before coming to rest on Tony's sneakers.

"I do want a real answer. I thought I was asking as an icebreaker, just making small talk, whatever, but I noticed this a couple weeks ago, and it keeps happening so I'm actually really curious. You're always barefoot. There must be a reason. Besides a lack of combat boots."

Barnes looked at his feet again. One foot scuffed on the floor while the toes on the other curled under as though trying to hide from observation. His pants weren't wide enough to cover his whole foot, so the toes remained visible despite their efforts.

"Okay. A real answer. Yes, my feet have been in combat boots for too damned long. And I am so glad to be able to not wear shoes for a change that I do like being barefoot. But after HYDRA, I did wear the combat boots before coming here. To the compound. It feels different." Barnes paused. "Gimme a minute to get the words right." 

It was silent for a few breaths, then Barnes looked up at Tony and made direct eye contact. Still, deep blue eyes focused in on Tony, scrutinizing and weighing Tony's state of mind before finishing his explanation. Not quite daring Tony to make fun of him, but maybe making sure Tony was worth the answer. He seemed to come to some decision and took a deep breath before speaking. "Yeah. Okay. It's different here because I feel at home. Not, not at home like this is my place and I chose it and I paid for it. At home, like, sort of, safe? I guess. Safe. After HYDRA, I wore those boots every day because every day I felt like I might have to run and not have time to stop and put my shoes on first. I was always waiting for the fight to come find me. And in the end, I was right. Steve showed up and all hell broke loose and I was on the run without time to catch my breath let alone find my shoes."

Barnes took another short break of silence and contemplation... "I was never safe. I was never settled. I was never at home. Even though I had my own place in Romania, I chose it, I paid for it, but it wasn't my home. Here, I feel settled. I can go all day without putting on my shoes and I never feel like I might have to run for my life at a moment's notice. Or without even a moment of notice."

Tony was quiet for a minute. "You feel safe here? After everything that's happened? After I tried to kill you? After everyone else made it clear that you shouldn't trust me unless it was with your gear? After all that, you feel safe here?"

"Well, yeah. You tried to kill me, but you were compromised at the time. You'd just watched me kill Howard, and your mother. Sorry, sorry, I didn't really mean to call attention to that. I just meant to say, you weren't wrong, at the time, to try to kill me. And I tried to kill you, in Berlin first, and again in Siberia. So, maybe we're at least even on that score? You might even be a little ahead of me since I tried more than once. And, you know, we're past that. I trust you not to try again. And I think you trust me not to either. I sleep under your roof. I eat food you provide. I let you look at my arm and tinker with the tech and make sure the Wakandans didn't leave something unconnected that will lead me to a fiery implosion. And I trust that if HYDRA shows up at the door without a moment's notice, gunning for me, you'll hold them off long enough for me to get my boots on."

Bucky sat on the stool beside the worktop and waited patiently for Tony to start his maintenance.


End file.
